Laid Paper Still-life Prints

Leonard Merchant's mezzotint, "Snail in Cup" is inscribed for fellow artist, Fritz Eichenberg. While a student at the Central School for Arts and Crafts in London, a young Leonard Marchant found an engraving rocker in a cupboard and proceeded to turn himself into a master of the painstaking art of mezzotinting. Marchant, who has died in Shrewsbury aged 70, grew up in Simonstown, the Royal Navy's enclave in South Africa. Though his first job was as a parliamentary messenger, he taught himself to paint and, aged 19, was given a one-man show in Cape Town. Fired by this success, he left for England to study painting and, he claimed, to escape the stifling home atmosphere created by his Catholic mother and aunts. (His father was killed in the second world war.) Without contacts in London, he phoned Jacob Epstein, whose recommendation resulted in a grant to study briefly at the Central School. It was later, when studying full-time at the Central, that he saw the mezzotints of the Japanese master, Yozo Hamaguchi, in a London gallery. He was hooked. Creating a mezzotint is tedious in the extreme. The copper plate must first be prepared with a "rocker" which roughens the surface. A plate may be "rocked" 30 or 40 times. The rough texture is then reduced with a burnisher and a scraper, allowing the print a range of tones from velvety black through the greys to white. Marchant's plates could be months in the making. But the technical demands were the least of his worries. In its 18th- and 19th-century heyday, mezzotint was solely a reproductive medium, for copying masters such as Reynolds and Turner. The development of photography rendered it unfashionable, and by the 1960s the technique, known as la manière anglaise, was a bygone medium. Marchant, by now a teacher in printmaking at the Central, began to create original mezzotints with a colleague, Radavan Kraguly. A perfectionist, he seemed to revel in the straitjacket procedure. Perhaps it was the metaphor of bringing darkness out of light that appealed to this straight-talking, sometimes sombre, man, who would suddenly relax and light up like a gleaming hue on one of his prints. His work was of squares and triangles with the occasional cat, black and ominous, and carefully arranged still lifes, featuring plants, a seed pod, a pot he might have bought at auction to celebrate the sale of a print. There were one-man shows, notably at the Bankside Gallery. He sold well at the Royal Academy summer exhibition, was a Florence Biennale prizewinner, spent a fellowship year at the British School in Rome, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers. But making mezzotints was not a paying job. Marchant and his South African wife...

Emidio di Nola, original Italian pasta poster. Size 19" x 25.5". Professional acid-free archival linen-backed; in excellent condition; ready to frame....

Amsterdam IX is an intriguing early career aquatint dry-needle etch print by renowned French-Dutch artist Olivier Julia. It depicts a detail of an old Amsterdam house facade and is b...

Amsterdam III is an intriguing early career aquatint dry-needle etch print by renowned French-Dutch artist Olivier Julia. It depicts a detail of an old Amsterdam house facade and is ...

Screen print on Saunders Waterford 300gsm paper Hand-signed, dated, and numbered by the artist 45 x 62 cm Edition 78 of 300 The print was editioned by master printer, Kip Gresham at The Print Studio, Cambridge for Kettle's Yard. It was made using an original drawing ‘cut’ into an acrylic sheet. The image is then reversed when printed. Description from the publisher: "Drawing has been fundamental to Ai Weiwei’s artistic practice from an early age. He also has a longstanding love of cats, and they appear frequently in the artist’s social media posts. Many cats used to roam his studio in Beijing. As part of the Kettle’s Yard exhibition, Ai’s ‘Cats wallpaper...

Amsterdam V is an intriguing early career aquatint dry-needle etch print by renowned French-Dutch artist Olivier Julia. It depicts a detail of an old Amsterdam house facade and is bo...

After Harnett by Kimberly Witham Print, Animal, Still-Life, Bird, Gothic, Dark Colors, Textured

Watercolor on paper

Amsterdam I is an intriguing early career aquatint dry-needle etch print by renowned French-Dutch artist Olivier Julia. It depicts a detail of an old Amsterdam house facade and is bo...

“Carrier Pigeon,” 2012, Limited edition silkscreen print by Baltimore street artist Gaia. Three-color hand-pulled silkscreen on Coventry Rag, 100% Cotton Archival Paper. Edition 25/...

Amsterdam X is an intriguing early career aquatint dry-needle etch print by renowned French-Dutch artist Olivier Julia. It depicts a detail of an old Amsterdam house facade and is bo...

"Renee's Breakfast" depicts a simple image of three eggs on a plate with bacon, a breakfast so familiar to many, and serves as a poignant reminder of the passage of time and the transience of even the most ordinary moments. Just as the morning sun rises and sets, casting shifting shadows and changing the hues of the yolks, so does life move forward, never standing still. The sizzling bacon mirrors life's moments, fleeting and ephemeral, yet leaving behind a savory residue of memories. In this seemingly mundane tableau, we find an allegory for the ceaseless march of time, urging us to savor each bite, each moment, for they are as precious as the breakfast on our plate. John Kato...